5

[Edited on February 8, 2008 at 12:34 PM. Reason : finally]

2/8/2008 12:33:56 PM

The Independence Building also known as the Realty Building, the state's first skyscraper. Located on Trade and Tryon in Charlotte. It was completed in 1909. Originally twelve stories high, the top two stories and stair tower were added in 1928 by William Lee Stoddart for a final height of 14 stories. Despite having been listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978, it was imploded on September 27, 1981 to make way for One Independence Center. The Independence Building was the first steel-framed skyscraper to be built in the two Carolinas. It was designed in a Neo-Renaissance style in the Beaux Arts tradition, but also showing influence of the style of Louis Sullivan. Fire Insurance maps indicate a main roof height (excluding penthouse construction) of 186' (57 m).


Sorry for the big pic, but I couldn't find a scaled down version of it.




[Edited on February 8, 2008 at 12:59 PM. Reason : ]

2/8/2008 12:59:30 PM

Yeah I don't really think that building's a skyscaper.

2/8/2008 1:38:07 PM

2/8/2008 1:46:59 PM

^^ It was a skyscraper in 1909. Very few cities outside of Chicago and New York had multiple buildings, excluding chapels, that were over 100 feet tall. The Independence Building was the tallest commercial building in the Carolinas when it was completed. The one it passed, the still standing Masonic Temple Building, was only 7 stories tall.

2/8/2008 2:00:08 PM

Quote :

"As of 5 February 2008, Burj Dubai has reached a height of 604.9 m (1,985 ft), with 159 completed floors."

1920 x 2560 pixel version if image above:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/53/BurjDubai080203.JPG

2/8/2008 3:29:10 PM

I want to see a skyscraper that has over an hour's worth of stair climbing involved to get to the top.

2/8/2008 7:31:35 PM

^ Well, how tall does a building have to be for an average person to take an hour of climbing stairs to reach the top?

You can't make the post you made and not tell us that.

According to my quick calculation, it would take about 25 minutes to climb 100 floors at the rate of 15 sec/floor. However, it would be impossible to maintain that rate the whole time. In fact, I would be surprised if many people could do it without taking a break.

So perhaps it would take around 35 minutes.

With Burj Dubai planning to have around 180 floors, I bet it would take most people 1 hour+ to reach the top.

2/8/2008 8:08:10 PM

The most I've seen an old man (who was lean as hell) do was just over 240 in an hour. I could do the WTC equivalent in 25 without stopping, I used to do 30 minutes without stopping that gave me about 130, if I ran the last few minutes to complete exhaustion, I got 144 once.

Then again, these were the days when I killed on a stairmaster, in real life, I'd subtract 5-10% off the stairmaster floors count due to the endless stair type scenario. I'd say a well trained person could do 200 floors in an hour. So, I will marvel at the first skyscraper that's over 200 floors tall.

2/8/2008 9:12:52 PM

Het Strijkijzer in The Hague (aka Den Haag) is the 2007 recipient of the annual Emporis Skyscraper Award. The building was chosen by our jury for its elegant reinterpretation of classic high-rise architecture, its contextual approach to a limited site, and its efficient program for accommodating new entrants to the housing market.

This building in the Netherlands is the tallest all-residential building in The Hague. It has 42 floors and is 432 ft tall. The design was inspired by the Flatiron Building in New York City. The terrace on the 41st floor is accessed via a dedicated panoramic glass lift.







http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/bu/?id=hetstrijkijzer-streethague-nestreetrlands

2/8/2008 11:40:22 PM

MGM Grand Macau in Macao, China. 35 stories and 505 ft tall. Completed in 2007. Cool looking building.



I wish this was a tiny bit smaller.

2/11/2008 7:32:10 PM

That's a neat building, however, you have to be careful where a reflective building with curves are placed, otherwise you can end up with a mess.

2/11/2008 7:46:21 PM

^ elaborate..

2/11/2008 8:15:57 PM

more what goes underneath but


triple level and bi-level roads in chicago

2/11/2008 9:28:46 PM

Disney Concert Hall had problems of heating opposing apartments and sidewalks to high temperatures. I think they were sued over the high A/C bills too for areas that got a lot of reflected light.

2/11/2008 11:59:32 PM

ahh, makes sense and not something i would immediately think about.


magnify, distort.

2/12/2008 12:03:01 AM

Bank of America Center in Houston, Texas. It has 56 stories and is 780 ft tall. It was completed in 1983.





Houston Skyline with the BoA Center on the left.

3/8/2008 6:39:32 PM

Latest pic of Burj Dubai:

Large size: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c2/Burjdubai20feb.jpg





Pic of current top of building:

Large size: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/06/BurjDubaiCranes18Feb2008.jpg

3/22/2008 5:26:38 PM

The Europa Tower in Vilnius, Lithuania:



Tallest building in the Baltic.

[Edited on March 22, 2008 at 5:49 PM. Reason : *in*]

3/22/2008 5:48:52 PM

^ that's pretty.



OK GUYZ... HERE IT IS, FINALLY A REALITY:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mile_High_Tower

Quote :

"The Mile High Tower (Arabic: ??? ??????) is a supertall skyscraper currently under construction in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The Kingdom Holding company, which is owned by prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, has chosen Bechtel company as the project's developer. If completed, the building would rise to one mile (1.6 km) in height, which would make it the tallest building in the world, surpassing the Burj Dubai. The project has a budget of 65 billion Saudi riyals ($15 Billion USD). The latest information is that tenders for construction would be handed out by July of 2008 when Kingdom Holdings would make an official annoucement. The building is not under construction as yet. An official rendering has not yet been released by KSA but preliminary sketches show no spire but a full colossal structure rising one mile into the sky. Actual floor count has not been finalized but calculated projections suggest a possible 375 floors. Challenges include sway and building lifts. The latter was addressed in Elevator World website by the use of electromagnetic lifts. UK's Hyder corporation, a structural engineering firm has been chosen as the principal engineers for the project along with Arup, also from the U.K. The architectural firm is the U.S. company Pickard Chilton."

If you ask me, that's fucking stupid. For many reasons.



Some artist drawings and plans:




Comparison to the Petronas Towers:






If red Xs: http://www.worldarab.net/Wiki/tabid/181/topic/The+Mile+Tower/Default.aspx



And here is a photoshop by someone depicting
how it will appear while driving down one of the
main streets in Jeddah, even though the tower
will be about 10-15 kilometers from there.



[BTW, it will be about halfway between where I live now
and my workplace now, about 10-15 kilometers from each.]





MUST SEE! If red X, click below and scroll about 3/4ths of the way down this page:

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=500019&page=2



[Edited on March 22, 2008 at 7:09 PM. Reason : ]

3/22/2008 7:01:35 PM

Someone earlier on this page was talking about climing stairs... well they actually do it here in Denver.

http://www.lungcolorado.org/RunTheRepublic/
http://onlineraceresults.com/race/view_race.php?race_id=7337
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_Plaza,_Denver

Run the Republic
53 floors
Average time: 15:40
Rising 717 feet (218 m)

3/23/2008 12:43:22 AM

People run the Empire State Building every year in an organized race. Think its some kind of fundraiser.

Quote :

"The project has a budget of 65 billion Saudi riyals ($15 Billion USD). "

You've got to be kidding me. How little are they going to pay the workers? Here in NYC I'm not sure that'd even cover the new Freedom Tower being built.

3/26/2008 12:16:39 PM

^ exactly... the new terminal at London Heathrow was just built at $8 billion.

you want to know how much the labourers get paid?

$150-200/month

3/26/2008 12:19:23 PM

So they're gonna try to build the tallest building (by far) in the world with far from the best iron workers. Lovely

3/26/2008 12:25:10 PM

^ i never said that.

in the oil-rich gulf countries, manual labourers come from inida/pakistan/bangladesh/egypt.

and they are paid peanuts. (and aptly enough, that is the case with workers building the world's tallest building now... see link below)

it is a gross violation of human rights, but that's the way it is, and it won't/can't be changed unless there is political will. (and until Arabs lose their pride and realise they aren't inherently better than non-Arabs)

check this out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burj_dubai#Labour_controversy


[Edited on March 26, 2008 at 5:04 PM. Reason : ]

3/26/2008 5:03:25 PM

Plans for a 5000' tall tower in London that would house 100,000. Their notions about self-governance are pretty cool.



http://www.geekologie.com/2008/03/london_tower_to_house_1000000.php

3/27/2008 7:59:37 PM

Empire world towers in Miami

93 story twin towers to built in Miami. Will be able to withstand 250 mph winds.

3/27/2008 9:19:04 PM

but will only last 10-15 years as miami is underwater

3/27/2008 9:20:56 PM

^seriously, GTFO of here with that type of ridiculous bullshit. Unless you want to talk about some more fiction preached by Al Gore.

3/27/2008 10:58:17 PM

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/03/25/antarctic.ice/index.html

3/28/2008 1:49:23 AM

Quote :

"the new terminal at London Heathrow was just built at $8 billion. you want to know how much the labourers get paid? $150-200/month"

Definitely not true. The minimum wage in the UK is £5.52/hour, which is almost $11/hour: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/nmw/

If they were paid minimum wage (highly unlikely for construction workers, more like 3-4x that), they would've made $1760/month (assuming a 40-hour work week).

[Edited on March 28, 2008 at 5:13 AM. Reason : ]

3/28/2008 5:12:30 AM

^you took that out of context. Read all the posts. He was talking about the skyscraper builders in the middle east.

3/28/2008 6:10:48 AM

my bad, fair enough

3/30/2008 12:05:54 PM

that is rather stupid to build a huge ass building in Miami though.

And if Miami is going under water, so is Dubai.

3/30/2008 12:16:03 PM

One Wall Centre, downtown Vancouver's tallest building. Completed in 2001, it won the Emporis Skyscraper Award for the Best New Skyscraper. It has 48 floors and is 491 ft tall.

4/11/2008 2:34:51 PM

Fancy an Armani Apartment in the Burj Dubai?

$3,500/sq ft

Yeah that's right, for a measly 1,000 sq ft apartment, it will set you back $3,500,000!!! Same size office will cost you $4,000,000

What kind of business or private businessman would set up shop for so much???

Quote :

"April 7, 2008 Emaar announces that the Burj Dubai, at 629 m (2,064 ft), with 164 completed floors has surpassed the KVLY-TV Mast to become the tallest man-made structure on earth currently standing"

Quote :

"Burj Dubai's final milestone will be to surpass the Warsaw radio mast in Konstantynów near Gabin, Poland (646.4 m (2,121 ft) until it collapsed in 1991) to become the world's tallest structure of any type ever built."

Quote :

"The total budget for the Burj Dubai project is about US$ 4.1 billion and for the entire new 'Downtown Dubai', US$ 20 billion. Mohamed Ali Alabbar, the CEO of Emaar Properties, speaking at the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat 8th World Congress, said that the prime office space at Burj Dubai had reached $4,000 per sq ft and that the Armani Residences, also in Burj Dubai, were selling for $3,500 per sq ft."

Some amazing new pics:

6.5 MB pic... click to see. Small version 1st pic below.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ea/Burj_dubai_palms.jpg








Cranes 2,000 ft in the air

4/25/2008 12:01:55 PM

the shadow on that thing is nuts, its like 1-2 miles long

4/25/2008 1:39:23 PM

^^Some residential space in the Plaza Hotel has been selling at over $4,000/sq ft for the past few years. Tell me another one

4/25/2008 11:39:46 PM

Looks like the whole world is getting penis envy.

4/27/2008 1:05:03 AM

Central Plaza in Hong Kong. Completed in 1992. 78 floors, 1,227 ft tall. It is the 2nd tallest building in Hong Kong.

5/10/2008 12:48:25 PM

I was in Raleigh this past weeked and I've got to say that the RBC Plaza looks pretty good from afar. It really adds some character and life to the skyline, plus it looks better b/c the huge gap between the BB&T building and the other tall building is filled.

6/16/2008 1:21:50 PM

That gap is going to get even more filled up within the coming years. Heard of the Edison project?



Read more up on it at:
http://www.newraleigh.com/articles/archive/the-edison-downtown-raleigh/

6/17/2008 3:45:06 AM

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iItzs35tXJ_cxiVNAvYndLX2t8xwD91BE8J01


oh my god... this building is UNBELIEVEALE!!! too bad many americans will never hear about it or care

6/17/2008 5:24:04 AM

^ Linked to the wrong news article?

6/17/2008 5:59:19 AM

\/ bingo

[Edited on June 17, 2008 at 6:15 AM. Reason : .]

6/17/2008 6:08:42 AM

Ah, I get it now. I didn't read past the title at first.

The whole UAE building boom and slave labor deal. Caring more about being the biggest building mecca in the world while treating your people like shit.

6/17/2008 6:13:14 AM

ok...i'll probably fail at this but I see this one from my mom's apt window

I can't really find a good pic of it since I don't know what it's called, but it looks like a golden eiffel tower.

ok, found it, it's the KLI 63. http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/bu/?id=kli63building-seoul-southkorea It's the 3rd tallest building in Seoul at 817ft.



[Edited on June 17, 2008 at 6:38 AM. Reason : ...fail..]

[Edited on June 17, 2008 at 6:39 AM. Reason : one more try.]

[Edited on June 17, 2008 at 6:40 AM. Reason : sigh...i'm a noob]

6/17/2008 6:36:10 AM

you cant use a page link as an image link. you need to link to the actual image which is either going to end in jpg or gif etc.

6/17/2008 8:05:56 AM

Quote :

"That gap is going to get even more filled up within the coming years. Heard of the Edison project?"

That Edison will sit directly behind the RBC Plaza when looking from that angle, so the gaps will still be pretty big.

From S Saunders, the Edison will hide behind the BB&T building


From Hodge, the Edison will hide behind the RBC Plaza



However, it will be a huge addition from the Centennial Campus angle. It will fill that gap perfectly.

6/17/2008 8:29:11 AM

->

6/17/2008 6:30:52 PM